DENTAL nurses in Freshbrook turned heroines during their morning commute as they stepped in to save the life of a seriously ill teenage girl.

Shortly before 8am on Monday on Sudeley Way in Grange Park, head nurse at Freshbrook Dental Practice, Jayne Hall, was dropping her 15-year-old daughter Ruby off for school when she saw a 17-year-old girl standing in the road clutching her chest.

Jayne, 48, and a fellow Good Samaritan stepped in to perform emergency CPR while her colleagues were called on to bring oxygen and a defibrillator from the nearby dental surgery.

“I was dropping my daughter off to go to school, and saw a girl standing in the middle of the road,” said Jayne.

“At first I thought she was on her mobile but it turned out she was holding her chest. I turned around and got out of the car, and she was really struggling for breath. I shouted to a young lad nearby to call an ambulance, because her eyes were rolling in her head.

“My daughter got my phone and called my boss to come because we have the defib and oxygen in our building. The young lad stayed on the phone to the ambulance, and at that point she had collapsed down onto a pile of our coats. She lost consciousness and was really gasping for breath.”

Jayne said she had to wrench control of the situation from others who were mistakenly attempting to put the stricken girl in the recovery position.

“The lady with me started mouth to mouth and I was doing compressions,” she said. “It wasn’t long until my boss was there with the oxygen and started administering that.

“Other people there were trying to put her in the recovery position because she could not breathe. They tried to take over but I had to tell them you can’t do that and you have to roll her onto her back.

“When someone stops breathing they have to be laid on their back with their head slightly elevated.

“Basic knowledge can save someone’s life. If someone is not breathing, the first thing to do is shout for help then administer CPR. Obviously you need to check for the signs like a pulse and if they are breathing.

“People were still standing there at the bus stop and you could tell something was wrong.

“At one point she stopped breathing, which was horrible. It is not what you want to see on your way into work.”

Debbie Reid, practice manager at the surgery, said she is immensely proud of her employee’s response.

“She realised the girl was collapsing, commandeered someone to call an ambulance, and took over the whole situation until the paramedics and ambulance arrived,” she said.

“Her daughter ran back and rang ourselves, because we are all CPR trained, and having the defibrillator and equipment we ran over because we are quite nearby. By the time we got there, there was herself and another young lady administering CPR”

Jayne added: “It seems to me kids at school should be taught basic first aid for situations like this. When it happened there were two teenagers just standing at the bus stop, and they could have gone over to help straight away if they had realised something was wrong with this girl and knew what to do.”